


daughters

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex carries her mother around like an amulet around her neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	daughters

**Author's Note:**

> This got honest pretty quickly. I took a lot of liberties. All errors are mine.

 

Alex remembers her first day in prison; it was the day she started seeing her mother again, wearing the clothes she last saw her in -- not the ones in the coffin; that would have been too morbid, even if this was her mother. She was wearing her best pair of jeans -- the ones that made her look not a _day_ over forty. 

Alex remembers her mother best under forty: that beautiful dress she wore the day Alex threw that party for her, complete with flowers and buffet tables and wine; that old gray sweater she liked wearing so much they had an argument every time Alex had it laundered.

That sweater was the first thing Alex looked for after they buried her. That night, Alex found herself digging through her mother's closet and rifling through her clothes, the scent of her still underneath the detergent. The sweater was right on top of everything, soft to the touch like she'd always remembered. Alex put it on but continued digging anyway, pulling all the clothes out until the drawers were all empty, until she found herself sitting on the floor, surrounded and  thinking, _I shouldn't be alone._

She stared at the mess around her until water filled her eyes and that night, it was the coldest.

*

_Maybe this is a bad time?_ her mother tells her, sitting down at the foot of her bunk. Alex is alone in her cube and she starts laughing so hard that her chest hurt too much and she starts crying instead.

*

At the time, people liked to say it gets better, but really, it doesn't -- Alex spent the first few months after the death figuring that out. It doesn't get better; the thing about things getting bearable is that people just get used to them. Alex got used to not having Piper around; she got used to not having her mother on speed-dial.

Some days, it felt like the break-up bore down on her harder than her mother's death, and on those days, she hated Piper a bit more. What right did this woman have, to skewer her heart this way? Her mother would have had none of it.

_This girl Piper_ , she remembers her mother saying. They were in the kitchen doing the dishes, that night she brought Piper home for dinner _. She's trouble, isn't she_? But when her mother smiled, it was like she already knew the answer. _If she breaks your heart, you know where to find me._

That time, Alex only laughed and said, _Yeah_. It amused her, how her mother had carefully chosen to use _if_ and not _when_ , even after all this time. Alex doesn't even remember that first girl anymore, but she still remembers how her mother had hugged her and said, _You always got me._

On the day it ended, Alex called her mother and got her aunt instead. _Always, but not today_ , she just thought, disconnecting.

*

Truth be told, her mother liked Piper. That, or her mother was a damned good actress. Alex brought them both on vacation once, at the face of her mother's protestations. _The beach gives me sunburn,_ she'd said. _It makes me feel like I'm forty-five._

On their second day, Alex found them talking about sunblock, Piper holding a bottle in each hand, and from afar, Alex heard them talking about SPF.

It's still among Alex's favorite memories.

*

On the day her mother came to her again, Alex beckoned her to come closer. She stared at her all-too pale skin, checking for translucence. In this light, her mother seemed surprisingly solid.

"You're not real." Alex looked around to make sure she was totally alone before she said that out loud; in this place, even her own voice sounded unreal.

Somehow, she'd always known it was only a matter of time before she started losing it; the most surprising part was actually the fact that it took this long.

_Oh, sweetheart,_ her mother just said, reaching out for her, but Alex pulled back, gathering her knees to her chest and sitting at the far corner of her bunk. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, her mother was gone.

*

The first few weeks, her mother followed her around prison, speaking to her at the most inopportune moments -- while she's sitting in the cafeteria alone, or in the laundry room, while folding clothes. _Remember how we used to fight over that sweater,_ her mother said, leaning against the dryers with her arms crossed. Alex almost laughed.

_Jesus, I'm not going to be that inmate who talks to herself. That role is taken._ When she looked back at her mother, she was shrugging and smiling, and at that moment Alex felt her heart grow a couple of sizes.

If there was something she’d always loved, it was the way her mother smiled.

*

On the day she got the offer, she turned to her mother, who was sitting on the floor with her between the library stacks.

“They said they’d take some time off my sentence if I started naming names,” Alex said. In those days, it almost seemed normal, talking to her mother this way. All the while she’d always been half-aware she isn’t really there – but Alex _saw_ her anyway, and it was as real as it could get.

“And what did you say?”

“I said I was not that sort of person, of course.”

Her mother started laughing, very, very softly.

“What?” Alex asked, annoyed.

“You’re in _prison_ ,” her mother said, still smiling. “What sort of _person_ are we talking about here, exactly?” It hit Alex like a slap across the face, yet her mother hadn’t even lifted a finger.

“I thought you were on my side,” Alex said.

“I thought I was dead,” her mother replied.

Alex turned away from her; it was all too much. Her cheeks burned like she had actually been hit. When she looked back, the space beside her was empty.

*

The first name she mentioned that day was Piper’s.

“Why do you hate her so much?” Her mother sat at the far corner, looking at her nails, hoisting her hand up in the light. “Well, aside from the fact that she abandoned you that day I died.”

“I think you just answered your question,” Alex said. A full afternoon’s worth of talking had left her throat dry. She was exhausted beyond belief. “Can we just—let me _sleep_ , mother.”

“Why do you hate Piper so much? Is it because she was right?”

“Mother.”

“When she told you the drugs that made your life were what ultimately destroyed it, she was right.”

“ _Mother_.”

“She practically asked you to choose her over the drugs—”

Alex sighed, putting her pillow over her face and pushing down hard until breathing got difficult.

“Piper was right. And that’s why you hate her.”

Alex sat up, chest heaving. She hated it when her mother was right when she was alive, and she hated it more now that she was dead. “This conversation is done.” She looked her mother in the eye and did not flinch.

For the first time, Alex saw her mother disappear; it began with the edges of her blurring. For a moment, there; the next moment, gone.

*

She became scarce after that; it was like her mother had only wanted to deliver that speech about Piper, and now that she had, she was done.

Still, Alex carried her mother around with her, like an amulet she wore around her neck. _I know you’re in there somewhere,_ she just thought, absently touching the hollow in her throat.

*

Nichols and Morello first spoke to her at the cafeteria one lunch time she was really alone. It eased the loneliness, but only a little. By this time, Alex had already grown so used to talking to her mother in her head that the first few times she was jittery, like a five-year-old who’d just discovered the playground.

“Don’t be scared, kid,” Nichols had said. “We look after each other here.”

They saved her from the dreary mornings, but the nights were simply beyond their reach. _Come back,_ Alex found herself whispering to the dark all too often. _I promise to be better._

Many nights she listened; most of them were silent.

*

Alex remembers the day she started seeing her mother again; it was the day Piper entered prison.

_Hey,_ her mother said by the entrance to her cube, arms comfortably perched over it. Startled, Alex pushed herself up on her bed, nearly dropping the book she was reading.

_Mother,_ she said, her lips not moving.

_Are you ready?_ The twinkle in her mother’s eye was a dead giveaway, and Alex felt herself get cold all over.

She’d been waiting and dreading this moment all her prison life.

“There’s a new girl,” said Nichols, dragging her to the window. “Morello’s driving her over.”

“I know,” Alex just said under her breath, moving closer to the light. From afar, Alex could make out the figure of a van pulling up by the gate.

Behind her, she felt the ghost of her mother’s hand on her shoulder, rubbing gently. _If you need me, you know where to find me._

Alex just bit her lip and said nothing, waiting for the van’s door to open. #


End file.
